Photo above is the newly decorated fourth floor where the “Experts” stayed during their weeklong inspection. Last week Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics had the equivalent of Georgia’s 5 year SACs review. I am not sure how many teachers are still around and alive to remember Dean Barone, who was the principal at Glynn Middle School during the PLAN program. Well if you recall she was sort of over the top when it came to putting on a good “show”. Well ZUFE went waaaaayyyy beyond Barone’s stressful “sprucing up” jags. In the last month on the campus they have added rocks (BIG TRUCK-SIZE ROCKS), trees (including a bamboo forest), plants, and even more flowers to the grounds. Besides the normal deep cleaning, they washed the roads (yes ROADS) with brushes, they hand washed (as they hung off of ropes) the outside wall of windows on the large auditorium, and they pressure washed all the stairs to every building. The hotel got new carpet for the elevator, new tables and chairs for the lobby and 4th floor, computers and printers for each room (I had to buy my own printer), a free coffee dispenser, a luggage carrier, and I am sure lots of other things that we didn’t get to see. Last week during the actual visit, they added guards at the front door and on the 4th floor (I actually got saluted once), “party girls” by the elevator to push the buttons, extra staff to meet all the “experts” needs and to keep the us quiet on the 6th floor and extra heat in the rooms (which we benefited from too!). Students couldn’t get into the school gate unless they had their ZUFE white pin on and teachers had to wear their red ZUFE pin. Even though we couldn’t order noodles from the hotel restaurant, they actually opened and heated the pool for the week and let anybody swim for free. It re-closed the night the “Experts” left. I never got observed but I sort of hoped they would walk in when I was teaching my freshman students unusual body parts like Adam’s apple, knuckle, dimple, thigh, palm, calf, and belly button by using the game Simon Says. I have heard we “passed” inspection and will now be able to be classified as a University instead of a college, which means a lot more money from the government. Not sure when that happens but maybe the next batch of teachers will get a raise.
Weird side note – they got 18 out of 19 A’s and they were very happy because they didn’t WANT 19 A’s – This is due to the fact that if they received a perfect score they would have had to been observed a second time by the national committee.
